very small aquarium, first attempt at keeping fish, not really sure which fish to choose ! can anyone give me some advice? dont want them all to go belly up within a month!
Answers:
Guppies and swordtails are easy to keep and will breed well
Try guppies, mollies. neons etc, get the water right first ask the shop
you cant go wrong with guppys, they will breed and are very coulerfull, my kids love em, good luck!!
A PARANAH!
Size depends on the amout of fish. I have a 10 gal tank . I have it set up with 5 Neon Tetras, 2 small Catfish and 2 small Algae Eaters. The tank has been up and running for about 3 months and we have not lost a fish. Good Luck!!
goldfish sucker fish mollies feeder fish guppies PIRANNA!
goldfish, or angel fish or the little guppies
get some angel fish
guppies . guppies and more guppies
Neon's, tetra's, harlequin's. Apparently all fairly easy to keep. That's the what the hubby says, as we are doing the same for our little girl for her birthday present. Not sure how we are going to do it yet though. Anybody got any good ideas how to populate a tank the week before christmas and keep it hidden till the 25th!?
Definitely hardy fish like many mentioned. Angel fish, and other really unique-looking fish are usually very hard to keep alive. That can be dissappointing to children when their new fish keep dying.
My daughter has a wonderful small tank with a dinosaur eel and two upside-down catfish - yes, they DO swim upside down and they're supposed to! They're both unique types of fish that catch everyone's attention and they're very easy to take care of.
My advice: go to your local pet store and ask the attendant: they usually have people knowledgeable on hand to assist you.
Neons, glowlights and a couple of bottom feeders. Once you have the tank set up and the water has settled, please remember you can only add a few fish at a time, otherwise you will get a nitrite spike and the fish will die. You need to test the water for nitrite/nitrate constantly until it settles. Purchase a good book on the subject or do some research on the web and this will save unnecessary belly up situations.
fancy goldfish are your best bet. they aren't hard to keep and goldfish are a standard. If you aren't keen on that idea, try tetras. they are also easy to keep but require a water heater. neon tetras are very small and cute. kids will love them.
Nobody has mentioned the most important thing about starting a new tank.
The new aquarium must go through a cycling process before the fish will be able to survive!! It would be worth your while to read through the whole article, not just the Nitrogen Cycle part, on Wikipedia from the link provided below:
"Nitrogen cycle
The nitrogen cycle in an aquarium.Of primary concern to the aquarist is management of the biological waste produced by an aquarium's inhabitants. Fish, invertebrates, fungi, and some bacteria excrete nitrogen waste in the form of ammonia (which may convert to ammonium, depending on water chemistry) which must then pass through the nitrogen cycle. Ammonia is also produced through the decomposition of plant and animal matter, including fecal matter and other detritus. Nitrogen waste products become toxic to fish and other aquarium inhabitants at high concentrations.
A well-balanced tank contains organisms that are able to metabolize the waste products of other aquarium residents. The nitrogen waste produced in a tank is metabolized in aquaria by a type of bacteria known as nitrifiers (genus Nitrosomonas). Nitrifying bacteria capture ammonia from the water and metabolize it to produce nitrite. Nitrite is also highly toxic to fish in high concentrations. Another type of bacteria, genus Nitrospira, converts nitrite into nitrate, a less toxic substance to aquarium inhabitants. (Nitrobacter bacteria were previously believed to fill this role, and continue to be found in commercially available products sold as kits to "jump start" the nitrogen cycle in an aquarium. While biologically they could theoretically fill the same niche as Nitrospira, it has recently been found that Nitrobacter are not present in detectable levels in established aquaria, while Nitrospira are plentiful.) This process is known in the aquarium hobby as the nitrogen cycle.
In addition to bacteria, aquatic plants also eliminate nitrogen waste by metabolizing ammonia and nitrate. When plants metabolize nitrogen compounds, they remove nitrogen from the water by using it to build biomass. However, this is only temporary, as the plants release nitrogen back into the water when older leaves die off and decompose.
Although informally called the nitrogen cycle by hobbyists, it is in fact only a portion of a true cycle: nitrogen must be added to the system (usually through food provided to the tank inhabitants), and nitrates accumulate in the water at the end of the process, or become bound in the biomass of plants. This accumulation of nitrates in home aquaria requires the aquarium keeper to remove water that is high in nitrates, or remove plants which have grown from the nitrates.
Aquaria kept by hobbyists often do not have the requisite populations of bacteria needed to detoxify nitrogen waste from tank inhabitants. This problem is most often addressed through two filtration solutions: Activated carbon filters absorb nitrogen compounds and other toxins from the water, while biological filters provide a medium specially designed for colonization by the desired nitrifying bacteria.
New aquariums often have problems associated with the nitrogen cycle due to insufficient number of beneficial bacteria. Therefore new tanks have to be "matured" before stocking them with fish. There are two basic apporaches to this: the fishless cycle and the silent cycle.
No fish are kept in a tank undergoing a fishless cycle. Instead, small amounts of ammonia are added to the tank to feed the bacteria being cultured. During this process, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels are tested to monitor progress. The silent cycle is basically nothing more than densely stocking the aquarium with fast-growing aquatic plants and relying on them to consume the nitrogen, allowing the necessary bacterial populations time to develope. According to anecdotal reports of aquarists specializing in planted tanks, the plants can consume nitrogenous waste so efficiently that the spikes in ammonia and nitrite levels normally seen in more traditional cycling methods are greatly reduced, if they are detectable at all.
The largest bacterial populations in a tank are found in the filter. Therefore efficient filtration is vital. A vigorous cleaning of the filter is sometimes enough to seriously disturb the biological balance of an aquarium.
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Other nutrient cycles
Nitrogen is not the only nutrient that cycles through an aquarium. Dissolved oxygen enters the system at the surface water-air interface or through the actions of an air pump. Carbon dioxide escapes the system into the air. The phosphate cycle is an important, although often overlooked, nutrient cycle. Sulfur, iron, and micronutrients also cycle through the system, entering as food and exiting as waste. Appropriate handling of the nitrogen cycle, along with supplying an adequately balanced food supply and considered biological loading, is usually enough to keep these other nutrient cycles in approximate equilibrium.
[edit]
Biological loading
19 Liter Aquarium, seems to be overcrowdedBiological loading is a measure of the burden placed on the aquarium ecosystem by its living inhabitants. High biological loading in an aquarium represents a more complicated tank ecology, which in turn means that equilibrium is easier to perturb. In addition, there are several fundamental constraints on biological loading based on the size of an aquarium. The surface area of water exposed to air limits dissolved oxygen intake by the tank. The capacity of nitrifying bacteria is limited by the physical space they have available to colonize. Physically, only a limited size and number of plants and animals can be fit into an aquarium while still providing room for movement.
In order to prevent biological overloading of the system, aquarists have developed a number of rules of thumb. Perhaps the most popular of these is the "7mm per liter of water" which dictates that the sum in cm of the lengths of all fish kept in an aquarium (excluding tail length) should not exceed the capacity of the tank measured in Liters (one inch of fish per U.S. gallon). This rule is usually applied to the expected mature size of the fish, in order to not stunt growth by overcrowding, which can be unhealthy for the fish. (Note that this rule of thumb breaks down for thick bodied fishes like some catfish, and aggressive fish like most Cichlids.) For goldfish and other high-waste fish, many aquarists recommend doubling the space allowance to one inch of fish per every two gallons and others even debate the usefulness of the "inch per gallon" rule because if fails to consider other important issues such as fish temperament, activity, compatibility with other tank mates(i.e. two male bettas shouldn't be kept together) dimensions of aquarium, and the filtration capabilities of the aquarium. The safest method of determining the stocking limits and compatibility is to talk to an experienced aquarist or group of aquarists at a local organization or a dedicated online forum.
The true maximum or ideal biological loading of a system is very difficult to calculate, even on a theoretical level. To do so, the variables for waste production rate, nitrification efficiency, gas exchange rate at the water surface, and many others would need to be determined. In practice this is a very complicated and difficult task, and so most aquarists use rules of thumb combined with a trial and error approach to reach an appropriate level of biological loading."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/aquarium.
african ciclids are a strong fish and do well in dirty water
I find that when getting a tank going for kids it is good to go with something bright, and something large enough for them to see quickly for their attention span can be limited.
Depending on the size of the tank you can go with Plaites.. These have nice color and tend to be harder then swordtails and mollies. And most tetras work well except neons, cardinals, and rummy nose tetras these tend to be sensitive.
hope this helps
I don't know how small you intend but a 10 gallon tank is about the minimum I'd recommend. You can get a 10 gallon setup for not a lot of money at a fish store or walmart (just don't buy the fish at Walmart - they tend not to be healthy.) A ten gallon tank can only really handle about 10 inches of fish (body length not counting tail)
If you need very inexpensive fish you can get feeder guppies at most fish stores. They typically cost a dime or quarter each. Fancy guppies are a couple dollars each. Guppies produce live young. Other options would be several mickey mouse platies. (also live bearers) The kids will like those - it's a platy with 3 dark spots on the tail that look like a face with mousketeer ears. Here's a bad photo of one - it's a boy by the way - females have a fan shaped fin under the belly as opposed to a pencil shaped one. http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/fishph.
Easy fish and zippy ones are zebra danios and leopard danios. The danios don't have to have a heater. Another easy fish is the white cloud mountain minnow - a good ecology lesson as they have become extinct in the wild - their stream in China has become so polluted and degraded that they no longer survive there.
Watch out for overfeeding - if the kids do it you will have problems. Give them (the kids to give the fish) just a couple of pinches of food a day.
The cycling process is the critical determinant. All tanks have to cycle, which means enough bacteria grow to take fish wastes -ammonia (harmful) - and convert them to nitrite (harmful), then to convert nitrite to nitrate, which is not very harmful to fish. It's getting them through that cycle that is the problem. It's a natural process and will happen on its own, but needs some time. Therefore only add a few fish to get the cycle started, some more fish a few weeks later, etc. Go to www.fishforums.com and look in the beginner or general aquarium sections and check out cycling. Partial water changes help as well - 10-20% a week. And use dechlorinated water.
If you start with a larger aquarium, it's acutally easier and more stable (more water, less variation, less fish death). It would also really expand your fish choices. A 30 gallon is a good starter size and you can keep a wide variety of tetras, gouramis, catfish, etc. Or you could go with cichlids and make it an aggressive tank.
If you already have the tank, and it's 5+ gallons, I'd get some white cloud mountain minnows (a small school of about 5) or guppies. Around 10 gallons you could get mollies or some different varieties of tetras, danios, or rasboras. If by very small you mean less than 5 gallons, then about the only thing to get is a betta. Check out this site for a good variety of fish: http://www.aquahobby.com/e_gallery.php.
The most important thing, regardless of the size of the tank, is to CYCLE THE TANK before adding fish. Here's an article on fishless cycling:
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_fish. It will prevent unnecessary fishy deaths. Also, if you add Bio-Spira or Stability when you introduce fish you will help decrease death. Good luck and welcome to fishkeeping.
the easiest and most colourful/popular are guppy's.they breed like rabbits and look like the rainbow.
Nobody has recommended Platys yet.
I've read that they are good starter fish in a new tank %26 quite tolerant to the initial conditions . wait at least a week with your tank set up before introducing them though.
If you've got one of those fun things that moves with bubbles it might keep the kids happy happy until you get your first fish.
My friends first fish were Platys . two beautiful red ones with black tails, then he got more . he added blue coral (blue with red tail) %26 a couple of white 'Mickey Mouse' ones - the last purchase was some sunset platys - yellow with orange tails.
Makes for a really colourful tank.
They're fun fish - they come up to the glass when they see you - probably they just want food. And then they bred. Seeing the first little fish was wonderful . seeing it disapear into the mouth of a hungry tetra (his other type) was not so good! He added some plants with fine leaves (originally he just had plastic plants) %26 some of the babies have survived to adulthood.
There's pictures of similar on the site in the source down below.
Along with the advice that you've recieved here about setting up your first tank, there's lots of good advice online. Try just searching on setting up an aquarium.
Have Fun %26 Good Luck!
if tropical put in swordfish platys mollies or guppies..
if cold water use veil tail goldfish or comets .put plenty of plants in the tank and they should do well
NOT guppy`s or other live bearers for kids as the fish do not live very long which tends to upset them. It also depends on the size of your tank but a mix of the following would be fine. Tetra`s which are middle swimmers.(there are a great many to choose from so ask your retailer) Corydoras, bottom swimmers (type of catfish) Hatchet fish or butterfly fish are both surface swimmers. Please dont be tempted by colour alone as even innocent angel fish and other bright cichlids are aggressive toward other fish. Check out a few sites on the internet before you buy. If it is a very small tank go for Danios, white cloud minnows and Green neons as i have had these together in a small aquarium and they look great. Good luck.
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